Primary Education

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• Ensure that all state schools are fully funded to a level where high quality educational delivery is not dependant on the collection of fees, private donations, fundraising, nor private investment.
• Oppose charter schools, repeal the enabling legislation around charter schools, and maintain the current flexibility to support/create some state schools designated special character.
• Continue to oppose any voucher systems for schools.
• Centrally fund all teacher and key support staff salaries.
• Review the governance structure in Tomorrow's Schools and trial alternative models of school governance amongst volunteer clusters of schools. (more here)

• Reduce class sizes by funding 2,000 more teachers, paid for by cancelling National’s flawed and divisive I.E.S. policy.
• Put in place a programme that provides an affordable option, available to all schools, for Year 5-13 students to have access to a portable digital device, in the classroom and at home.
• Develop a comprehensive plan for rebuilding out-dated and worn-out school buildings, so that every school has access to modern learning environments by 2030.
• Scrapping the use of Public Private Partnerships for the build of new schools and the re-building of existing school facilities.
• Ensure every child develops the basic foundation skills for further learning by extending Reading Recovery to all schools and developing a parallel intervention for children struggling with basic maths skills. (more here)

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• Give every school high quality ultra-fast broadband and faster broadband to ensure every student can benefit from technology to achieve their best.
• Empower schools to step away from day-to-day management of school property by completing the facilities management programme.
• Encourage neighbouring schools working in densely populated areas to work together to share facilities, infrastructure, and capacity.
• Invest $359m over four years to recognise excellent teachers and principals by introducing four new roles in schools.
• Grow Asian languages in schools through a new $10 million contestable Fund. (more here, here, here, and here)

• Review the implementation of the operations grant with a view to increasing it to address equity challenges and ‘outside of school’ factors that impact on student achievement.
• Work with the sector to establish a pilot programme in partnership with the early childhood education sector, initially in a defined area, for the collection and analysis of school entry baseline evidence to target staffing and resourcing to meet need (support or extension) and inform practice.
• Establish an early intervention staffing component for identified new entrants at risk in literacy and numeracy across all schools with initial priority being one full-time teaching equivalent for every U1 to U3 school ($50m : 992 schools as at December 2013).
• Work with the sector to establish a pilot programme in partnership with the early childhood education sector, initially in a defined area, for the collection and analysis of school entry baseline evidence to target staffing and resourcing to meet need (support or extension) and inform practice.
• Establish an early intervention staffing component for identified new entrants at risk in literacy and numeracy across all schools with initial priority being one full-time teaching equivalent for every U1 to U3 school ($50m : 992 schools as at December 2013). (more here)

• Increase funding for, and access to, Reading Recovery.
• Set a minimum number of hours for the core teaching of literacy and numeracy.
• Work towards reducing the teacher/pupil ratio, with a particular focus on reducing class sizes for Years 4-8.
• Work on introducing at least one teacher aide per primary school classroom to help with behavioural and developmental issues (beginning in low decile schools). (more here)